Category: Sides

By Worker Bee

This is not your typical breakfast of eggs, potatoes and bacon. Instead, we’re talking about braised pork belly (the same cut that bacon comes from), sweet potatoes roasted with smoked paprika butter, and the runny yolk from a fried egg drenching the whole thing.

First, the pork belly. This is a cut of pork with a huge amount of flavor for a relatively low cost. Succulent and fatty, it’s one of the easiest cuts of pork to cook into mouth-watering tenderness. It takes several hours to braise pork belly, so plan to start this recipe the day before (and if you want more leftovers, plan to buy 3 pounds of pork belly, instead of 2).

By Worker Bee

An edible serving dish made of roasted eggplant halves stuffed with cinnamon and paprika scented lamb. How does that sound for dinner tonight? The eggplant is roasted until the texture is creamy enough to eat with a spoon. The ground lamb is cooked with onion, garlic and aromatic spices. Combined, the eggplant and lamb turn into a meal that is the definition of simple, healthy and delicious.

Can you substitute ground beef, pork or even turkey in this recipe? Certainly. But don’t forget about what lamb has to offer: All eight essential amino acids, several B vitamins, niacin, zinc, iron and lots of conjugated linoleic acid. As with all meat, grass-fed is ideal. Although lamb is more likely to be grass-fed than beef, much depends on where the lamb is raised. Before stocking up on ingredients for this recipe, read this guide for figuring out whether or not lamb is grass-fed. (And check out the tips below for buying perfect eggplant.)

By Worker Bee

When you want something green on your plate but don’t feel like salad, then this warm coconut and pancetta kale is a go-to side dish. It pairs well with any type of meat or seafood. It’s easy to make. And although kale can taste good raw with just a drizzle of lemon and olive oil, it tastes really good with crispy pancetta, creamy coconut milk, and lots of garlic.

In fact, if you want to make these greens the main course and serve a small portion of protein on the side, go for it. Prepared this way, kale is filling and satisfying. Meat and seafood always have a place on the Primal table, but optimally, so does mineral-and-antioxidant-rich plant matter.

Eating leafy greens is like taking a whole food “supplement” with naturally safe and well-balanced vitamin and mineral levels. In this particular case, it’s an incredibly delicious supplement.

Is your vegetable crisper is full of greens that you have good intentions to eat before they go bad? Then use them in this recipe. In addition to kale, this recipe also works well with greens like collards and Swiss chard (or, a combination of greens).

By Worker Bee

Furikake is a Japanese seasoning made from dried fish (bonito), sesame seeds, dried seaweed, salt, sugar, and often msg. A Primal version is easy to make–simply drop the sugar and msg–and you have a versatile seasoning for just about everything.

The ratio of ingredients can be tailored to your own taste, so simply use this furikake recipe as a guide. This particular recipe adds plenty of nori, since you can’t go wrong with a lot of nori.

Lightly toasted sesame seeds add crunch and the bonito flakes add an irreplaceable salty, umami flavor. Most grocery stores these days sell bonito flakes, or it can be ordered online. Bonito is air-dried, aged, and shaved tuna.

By Worker Bee

Sweet potatoes have a lot going for them as a breakfast potato of choice. Shredded into hash browns, they make a bigger flavor statement than regular old potato hash browns, and the sweetness is a perfect contrast with salty bacon and eggs.

Sweet potatoes are also strong sources of beta-carotene, manganese, and copper and safe sources of starch.

Sure, sweet potato hash browns can be cooked in a skillet. But if you have a waffle iron in the back of the cupboard that’s not being used for waffles any more, then pull it out. A waffle iron quickly and easily turns shredded sweet potatoes (and regular potatoes) into hash browns. The strings of sweet potato are both tender and crispy, with sweet, buttery flavor. Pile them high on plate and they’ll fly off the breakfast table (and the dinner table, too).